Re: POV-RED: The Geonomist

[rorac <rorac@laneta.apc.org>]

SMITH, Jeffery J.
        I've read your article with a lot of interest! This is my working place 
in
México. To keep the land property in hands of more than a million peasants,
in the system called Ejidos. This is only posible, through education first,
and gouvermental support. There is Fox program for the second, but
education and educators is the hard part! I send you a paper explaining it
broader. 

                                Male
                                        


At 09:20 AM 1/22/03 -0800, you wrote:
>Hello, everyone;
>
>The McKeever Essay Contest (out of Berkeley, California) chose my entry
>on sustainable development of cities and nations. The ideas therein
>constitute a new approach dubbed "geonomics". Several global conferences
>have over the years invited me to deliver the paper. Copies are
>available.
>
>Here in Portland, Oregon we're organizing a unique eco-city conference
>for 2006 (making ecology and economy sustainable). If you have ideas for
>making conferences unique, don't hesitate to get in touch.
>
>Broad ownership of capital (physical, not fiscal) rests upon broad
>ownership of land. Look at the UN or World Bank GINI quotients ranking
>nations by land ownership, then look at the list of countries ranked by
>poverty/development (and human rights abuses); you see them running in
>opposite directions, negatively correlated, to drop into economese.
>
>Look at the best examples of development - Taiwan and Costa Rica - and
>find wide distribution of land (they're not paradise; they still have
>serious problems). The overlooked key in Taiwan was a land tax, which
>Madero recommended in Mexico, and got himself assassinated for. Four
>other times and places, using a land-value tax to recover more natural
>rents broke up huge plantations into family farms without bloodshed,
>providing the groundwork for eradicating poverty.
>
>Education helps. In Denmark a century and a half ago, the people
>promoting a tax on land value to break up huge fiefdoms allied with the
>"Folk School Movement", the forerunner to public education. Upon
>graduation, they gave their adult students tracts to read on the reform
>of land and taxes. Adopting a land-value tax around 1840, Denmark went on
>to enjoy the highest rate of owner-occupied farms in Europe and a
>thriving dairy industry for which they're still famous.
>
>We need to articulate clearly and forcefully the right to a fair share of
>land and to a fair share of "rent", all the money we spend on the nature
>we use plus the enormous economic value of government-granted privileges
>like corporate charters, broadcast licenses, utilty franchises, etc.
>Winning public acceptance of this right leads to the reform of taxes and
>subsidies which leads to an end of poverty everywhere.
>
>I attended the first World Social Forum. What a pleasant blend of chaos
>and enthusiasm. There I gave a talk on the above. Ciao.
>
>SMITH, Jeffery J.
>President, Geonomy Society, www.progress.org/geonomy
>Share Earth's worth to prosper and conserve.
>
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>

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Roberto oliveros Rivas A.C.
Baja California 26 Temamatla Edo. de Mexico
Tel: (52) (5) 9885597  Fax: (52) (5) 9885798
http://www.laneta.apc.org/rorac